Hierarchy In The Handmaid's Tale

The British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, once said, “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t”. Actions speak louder than words, so if someone is truly powerful then they will act as such, so that no one needs to speak it. The rules are quickly established by the person’s behavior. They simply lay down their rules and expectations instead of waiting around for someone else to do it for them. The way they talk and carry themselves shows how powerful they are. Truly, no one should doubt or question their power if they truly are powerful. They do not leave their power up for interpretation, instead they take charge and do what needs to be done to show that they are powerful. The dystopic societies

The hierarchy of Gilead from most powerful to the least consists of the governing officials, Eyes, Commanders, Angels, Guardians, Wives, Econowives, Aunts, Martha's, Handmaids, and Unwomen. The greatest distinguish between the class distinctions are between the men and women. All of the men are near the top of the hierarchy while the women occupy the bottom. Offred opens the text with some insight about the conditions for the hierarchy saying, “This is the kind of touch they like: folk art, archaic, made by women, in their spare time, from things that have no further use. A returned to traditional values. Waste not want not. I am not being waster. Why do I want?” (Atwood 7). The quote is creating several connections between women in general, rugs, and Offred herself. Throughout the text, women are brought back to their traditional values and essentially “put in their place”. The women either stay home, get groceries, go to the doctor’s office, cook, clean, or have sexual intercourse with the head of their household in hopes of conceiving. All of these tasks do not require any extraordinary level of thinking and that is the point of the caste system. The women have the least amount of power in the hierarchy while the men hold a tad bit more. The women are characterized by their clothing. Offred gives some insight on the clothing characterization when she says, “There are other with baskets, some in red, some in

Mustapha Mond is essentially the governing power in the society and the next ranking is the Alphas. The lower class citizens are predestined at their creation. The Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre purposefully set the conditions for the caste system. Mr. Foster believes, “‘Nothing like oxygen-shortage for keeping an embryo below par,’” (Huxley 14). The Hatchery deprives some embryos of oxygen and put them near radioactivity to purposefully stunt their growth. When questioned about the conditioning the Director of Hatcheries responds, “‘Hasn’t occurred to you than an Epsilon embryo must have an Epsilon environment as well as an Epsilon heredity?’” (Huxley 14). The placement of power is established at the beginning. The workers at the Hatchery decide who holds the power and who bows down to it. The society shows corruption because instead of giving everyone the same opportunity to grow and develop under the same circumstances, they interfere with the conditions. They do not allow the citizens the luxury of being able to chose their lifestyle by their own capabilities, instead they chose it for them. They give the Epsilons different conditions where they do not have a chance for a normal life to span their capabilities, with the way they are conditioned at creation they do not even have to ability to achieve some of the tasks that the Alphas have. They